Yahoo! Mail Beta: bigger…better…FASTER!

Update: I forgot to mention that we don’t have this update pushed out everywhere yet. The rollout is just starting, so you may not see the changes immediately. Sit tight, it’s coming.

It may seem like it’s been a while since our last major release of Yahoo! Mail Beta, but rest assured we’ve used that time wisely. We’ve been focused on three major areas: bigger, better and faster.

Bigger

Nothing’s bigger than infinite, so I guess nothing’s bigger than Yahoo! Mail now that we’re offering infinite storage.

Better

Many users complained that the checkboxes from classic mail were gone. They wanted an easier way to select multiple messages at once. They wanted to move, delete and mark as spam messages without opening them in the reading pane. We heard you loud and clear, so checkboxes are back. A new column down the left side of the message list allows you to select messages (without opening them in the reading pane) and take action on them as a set. Of course, for those of us accustomed to rich mail applications, you can still Shift-click and Ctrl-click to your heart’s desire when selecting messages.

We’re very sensitive to user feedback. When you switch from Yahoo! Mail Beta back to classic, we actually pay attention to why you’re switching back. As a result, many changes made in this release are the direct result of you telling us what you want.

Users are getting smarter and smarter, learning the ways of the spammers and phishers. Many users are conscious of opening messages because of the possibility of image beacons and JavaScript security attacks. Several users complained that it was difficult to take action (delete, mark as spam, etc) on messages without actually opening the message in the reading pane. Voila! Now you can right click on a message and it won’t be opened in the reading pane. Once you’ve taken action on the message using the context menu, whatever you had selected before right clicking is restored.

This one’s for Gerald in the Y-Mail Yahoo! Group. For users who have many “From” addresses, particularly those users who are fond of our AddressGuard feature, you’ll be happy to hear that the list of available “From” addresses is now scrollable. No more problems trying to track down an address off the screen.

We took feedback from users and reorganized the message toolbar. The “Delete” and “Spam” buttons are no longer next to one another, making it harder to accidentally click one when you meant the other. Additionally, a “Move” button has been added, allowing you to move selected messages to a particular folder (for users who are less comfortable with drag and drop). The “More Actions” button has been expanded to include “Darren’s Extended Navigation” feature (I mentioned it in the last post). Lastly, remember the “View” button? You know, the one that said “More View Options Coming Soon” forever? Well, some view options have been added: sort by unread, sender, subject, date, size, attachment or flag.

We’ve added an option for marking messages as read. Previously your only choices were: immediately, after 2 seconds and after 5 seconds. We’ve added a new option: never. That option allows you to completely control when (or if) your messages are marked read.

Additionally, this release significantly reduces the clicking sounds you hear when using Internet Explorer.

Faster

Launch is now significantly faster. A lot of work has been done under the hood in this release for performance. One particular change we’ve done involved what we call componentization. The short version is, several pieces of functionality have been broken up (componentized) and are now loaded on demand when they’re needed. So if you never use a particular component, you never pay the cost of loading it.

Selecting messages in the message list to view in the preview pane is also faster.

If you’re a keyboard person like me and you hate reaching for the mouse, then you’ll love this feature. Select one or more messages in the message list and press the “d” key. The “Move” menu will drop down, allowing you to use the up/down arrow keys to select a folder to move the messages to. Slick.

Ryan Kennedy
Yahoo! Mail Evangelist